Should The Red Key Continue To Kill Applications?

It has been a while since Nokia has got the message that smartphones need ample RAM. If we look at just a few of the recently released phones, it becomes clear all of them have a decent amount of RAM, be it the E90, N82, N95 8GB even the slightly lower end phones like the N81 and E51 have been endowed with enough RAM.

What used to happen was that people new to S60 and its multitasking abilities used to hit the red key thinking they were closing the application and it would merely go to the background where it would stay in the memory and as the number of such applications increased, they would clog up the phone. To overcome this situation newer devices shipping with OS 9 killed the application when the red key was hit, this resulted in better performance and people were happy.

However let us look at today. Since phones have enough RAM Nokia makes certain applications live on inspite of the red key kill, to speed things up for us. The contacts, the menu and a few other applications stay on, hidden. So much so that in the music phones we cannot even kill the Music Player application if we wanted to, red key or no red key.

My point being that current smartphones, the mighty Nseries and Eseries, the multimedia computers as Nokia would call them are pretty efficient at managing multiple open applications. I tested the N82 and you would be surprised to know that I could run each and every application on the phone without even a single one crashing! There is no way in the world anyone is going to use a phone in that manner.

I know that we can simple keep something running and minimise it by hitting the menu key twice but there’s another another reason why I say this. Many a time, the red key is hit accidently; while in some applications the data is saved, in the others its all gone. E.g. Messaging will save the draft, but if I have the Web Browser open and I make a mistake, everything is gone, I might have been writing an email and its gone, poof! I don’t know if its ever happened with you but it happens to me, specially when I’m using a phone I’m not comfortable with yet.

Read on for my proposal.

Now, here’s my proposal.

= Make this option customisable – make two modes ‘Dummy’ and ‘Expert’.

= By default, in the Dummy mode, settings remain as they are – red key kills.

= In the Expert mode, let me choose what to do. Whether the red key will kill or not.

= Let me select specific applications that do not get closed by the red key.

= Let me choose the number of applications I want to keep running.

So whats the harm of letting us leave a few applications running in the background. Battery impact for less experienced users? Yes, thats an issue so may be we could cap the number of applications that can remain open. Say 5, and once a new one is opened after 5 and minimised, the first one to be sent to the background saves any current data and closes to make room for the newest entrant. (This is only valid in the dummy mode – experts are expected to know the impact). May be with time these ‘Dummy’ and ‘Expert’ modes could be developed to include a lot of other things such as applications shown, functionality and so on).

What I basically want is being able to make exceptions to the red key kills rule. The above is just a random though I had, what I suggested is not foolproof and there must be loopholes but this is how S60 should be, customisable. I am sure some of you have similar thoughts and some disagree, but lets see if we can work something out for the S60 bosses to think about.

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10 thoughts on “Should The Red Key Continue To Kill Applications?”

The ability to switch between running applications is one of the things I love about symbian.

Recently, a few of my freinds who are new to the S60 phones did not know that one can simultaneously run few applications in these phones and switch between them. Freinds have come and enquired as to why there is the application running sign that appears in the menu when an application is running appearing in their menu as to if they have done something wrong with that application or something.

Recently a freind who knew about it came and enqiured when he bought a N81 that why the music application can not be switched off.

I think the S60 devices stand out because of its open platform and its multitasking ability.

So as to your opinion to maybe bring in an option to kill or even make it cutomisable, i strongly disagree as that would leave the new user of S60 devices ignorant of its wonderful abilities. Even the experts had their own learning experience so let every one have their day.
I fell in love with the abilities of what the symbian phones and I personally learnt about things by hit and trial when there were not many things I had access to about nearly 4 years back.

So I think by taking away the opportunity from people what they can do with their S60 devices, we can take away the awe and the powerful feeling one has carrying a S60 device. We take away the chance from people to be fans of symbian, like us.

The multitasking provision of the S60 is dear to me and should not be taken away from people who are new to it as they would’nt utilise their devices to the full.

The ability to switch between running applications is one of the things I love about symbian.

Recently, a few of my freinds who are new to the S60 phones did not know that one can simultaneously run few applications in these phones and switch between them. Freinds have come and enquired as to why there is the application running sign that appears in the menu when an application is running appearing in their menu as to if they have done something wrong with that application or something.

Recently a freind who knew about it came and enqiured when he bought a N81 that why the music application can not be switched off.

I think the S60 devices stand out because of its open platform and its multitasking ability.

So as to your opinion to maybe bring in an option to kill or even make it cutomisable, i strongly disagree as that would leave the new user of S60 devices ignorant of its wonderful abilities. Even the experts had their own learning experience so let every one have their day.
I fell in love with the abilities of what the symbian phones and I personally learnt about things by hit and trial when there were not many things I had access to about nearly 4 years back.

So I think by taking away the opportunity from people what they can do with their S60 devices, we can take away the awe and the powerful feeling one has carrying a S60 device. We take away the chance from people to be fans of symbian, like us.

The multitasking provision of the S60 is dear to me and should not be taken away from people who are new to it as they would’nt utilise their devices to the full.

Thats exactly my point pal. Multitasking! When someone new to S60 buys a phone and hits the red key to close an application and it closes like on any other phone, he gets no idea about its multitasking ability. Its just another phone.
But if the red key ceases to kill applications and he sees the ‘application running’ indicators throughtout the menu, he immediately comes to know that the applications he thought he killed are still running! Thus he learns about multitasking without referring to any literature.

Now this argument I made might differ from the Dummy and Expert mode ideas, I think it makes sense too. Thats why I said the idea is out in the open for deliberations! Hope I make myself clear, cause I think you misunderstood me, I was never against multitasking.. In fact thats what I’m trying to encourage..!

Thats exactly my point pal. Multitasking! When someone new to S60 buys a phone and hits the red key to close an application and it closes like on any other phone, he gets no idea about its multitasking ability. Its just another phone.
But if the red key ceases to kill applications and he sees the ‘application running’ indicators throughtout the menu, he immediately comes to know that the applications he thought he killed are still running! Thus he learns about multitasking without referring to any literature.

Now this argument I made might differ from the Dummy and Expert mode ideas, I think it makes sense too. Thats why I said the idea is out in the open for deliberations! Hope I make myself clear, cause I think you misunderstood me, I was never against multitasking.. In fact thats what I’m trying to encourage..!

Now to add my opinion… Nokia really should fix the annoying non-conforming behaviour of the read key. Shuts every thing off excapt the music player, the internet browser and the search application but only if you searched something in it.

Now to add my opinion… Nokia really should fix the annoying non-conforming behaviour of the read key. Shuts every thing off excapt the music player, the internet browser and the search application but only if you searched something in it.

Handy Shell will allow you to do this. If you don’t want the shell but still want active standby, and just change the red button behaviour, do the following:

disable the ‘handy shell’ option in the ‘cycle’ menus. then select for the red button to either hide, or close with exceptions. but do NOT exit the settings window back to handy shell. just red-button it to the background, and you’ll use active standby like nothing happened – except now red button will minimize!!

Handy Shell will allow you to do this. If you don’t want the shell but still want active standby, and just change the red button behaviour, do the following:

disable the ‘handy shell’ option in the ‘cycle’ menus. then select for the red button to either hide, or close with exceptions. but do NOT exit the settings window back to handy shell. just red-button it to the background, and you’ll use active standby like nothing happened – except now red button will minimize!!

I install the Epoc ware handy shell then worked out how to customise my phone and using the red key menu keys L/R ect….
then you can set close everything when red key is press or have an exception list for application that you want to hide. e.g Nokia Maps, Music player, Games….

I install the Epoc ware handy shell then worked out how to customise my phone and using the red key menu keys L/R ect….
then you can set close everything when red key is press or have an exception list for application that you want to hide. e.g Nokia Maps, Music player, Games….